Too Much Newsprint?

"The American daily press is, since the moral collapse of so many of the British penny papers, the best in the world. Unfortunately, it is not nearly as good as its owners and operators believe . . . Nor is it likely to improve as long as the present mood of mutual congratulation obscures the need for self-examination." Thus, in no mood to join in the congratulation, did London's weekly Economist launch its own penetrating examination of U.S. daily newspapers.

Most of the weaknesses of the U.S. press, said the Economist, can be traced to "a surfeit of newsprint" and a volume of advertising that has swollen the bulk of U.S. papers "to a point where they cannot be properly edited . . . Without the firm hand of an editor, even the New York Times . . . becomes a diamond mine when it should be a jeweller's shop. It is the job of an editor to do the mining . . . Too often [readers] are left to do their own."

Irrelevant Illiteracy. The size of the papers forces them to hire "many men whose talent for their job is doubtful. The best are used as reporters, and sub-editing [i.e., copyreading] is often left to the ignorant and illiterate. [Competition] for news has largely destroyed all style and literacy in its presentation . . . If an editor were to dismiss one of his staff on the grounds that he could not write, the reason would be felt to be irrelevant."

Not only writing but reporting was slovenly, thought the Economist. One of the worst recent examples occurred "when the ridiculous charges of Mr. Racey Jordan against Mr. Harry Hopkins were spread across the front pages" (TIME, Dec. 19). In that case, the Economist noted, both TIME and LIFE took "the elementary precaution of checking . . . By testing Mr. Jordan's story and finding it wanting, the Luce papers showed a greater sense of responsibility than many of their daily contemporaries . . ."

Confidential Ignorance. Since war's end, foreign correspondence has also been below par, the Economist said. In place of the "brilliant band" of prewar correspondents, the U.S. press has come largely to rely on the news services and armchair pundits. Columnists Joe and Stewart Alsop, Walter Lippmann, Tom Stokes, Marquis Childs and Doris Fleeson got a pat on the back. Said the Economist: "But there are also bad columnists and ignorant ones. Recently, one of them* gave a detailed account of very confidential decisions which, he said, had just been made by King George of Greece. [Most] editors . . . forgot that King George had been dead two years, and printed the story."

*Robert S. Allen, syndicated in 65 papers.

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